Turkey's Erdogan adopts Muslim Brotherhood's four-fingered salute

R4BIA symbol, and Erdogan's four-fingered salute on Friday (AA)

In a sign that relations between Turkey and Egypt are becoming
increasingly unfriendly, Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has been increasingly flashing the new "R4BIA" four-fingered salute
that has been adopted as a victory sign by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) adopted the new salute after last week's
clashes when security forces cleared out the massive sit-ins of MB
supporters, resulting in nearly 1,000 deaths, mostly of MB supporters.
Most of the clashes occurred in Cairo's Rabaa Square. In Arabic, the
word "Rabaa" or "Rabia" means "fourth," and MB supporters are now
publicizing the new four-fingered salute by carrying around bright
yellow signs, and posting the signs on social networking sites.

Erdogan has flashed the four-fingered salute several times in the last
week, showing his solidarity with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and his
disapproval of Egypt's new government. Al-Arabiya (Dubai) and Anadolu Agency (Ankara)

Syria chemical weapons attack generates international controversy

To the surprise of no one except the sycophants of the psychopathic
Bashar al-Assad, we're now in the third day following the horrific
chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb in Syria, but the U.N.
inspectors are still sitting in Damascus, forbidden by the regime to
travel the 20 miles to the site to inspect it.

And we're hearing the usual garbage from the Russians. Of course it's
the rebels, not the regime, who launched the attack, they're saying,
and yes, we'd like to encourage the Syrians to allow the inspectors to
visit the site. But those remarks, which have been widely touted as
"a sign of hope" by the credulous mainstream media, did not come at
the U.N. Security Council, nor from President Vladimir Putin, nor from
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. They came from a spokesman,
who added:

"It draws attention to the fact that biased regional
media have immediately, as if on command, begun an aggressive
information attack, laying all the responsibility on the
government."

So apparently the real victims here are not the hundreds of people who
died horrifically on Wednesday from a chemical weapons attack.
According to the Russians, the real victim is Syria's president Bashar
al-Assad, who is being subjected to a horrific "information attack."

At any rate, Syria continues to block inspections by the U.N.
inspectors. As everybody is well aware, each day that goes by not
only causes the evidence to degrade, and also gives the al-Assad
regime time to clean up any evidence that might incriminate it.
Russia Today

U.S. hints at cruise missile strikes against Syria

Senior American Defense Department officials are acknowledging
that the U.S. is considering various options for military intervention
in Syria, including a list of targets for possible cruise
missile strikes. At the same time, the U.S. Navy is putting
more forces into the area, in preparation for a possible
cruise missile strike.

There are two conflicting commonly held views with regard to
U.S. or Western military intervention into Syria:

One view is that military intervention would inflame
the situation, leading to a wider war.

The other view is that without military interview, the conflict
will continue to worsen, leading to a wider war.

In this case, both views are correct.

As I've suggested in the past and will now make explicit, it's my
opinion that a tipping point has been reached and passed, and it
really no longer matters what steps are taken or not taken with
respect to military intervention in Syria. Either way, the Syria
conflict has launched a trend that will continue to strengthen until
it leads to a much larger conflict.

It was in 2003 that I first wrote that
the Mideast was headed for a major new war between Jews and Arabs,
re-fighting the genocidal 1948 war that followed the partitioning of
Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Since then, it was
left to be answered how that new war would be triggered.

There were several possibilities. There was the 2006 war between
Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. There were several wars involving
Israel, Fatah, and Hamas in Gaza. But all of those wars fizzled out
within a few weeks.

The Syrian conflict might have fizzled out in 2011 if the U.S.
and the West had intervened military at that time.

Or, it might have fizzled out by itself if it hadn't been for Russia's
incredible military intervention, supplying massive amounts of heavy
weapons and training to the al-Assad regime.

However now, 2 1/2 years later, the U.S. and the West have lost
all credibility in the Mideast by allowing themselves to look
like weak fools, while Russia continues its aggressive support
for Syria, and is perceived to be the strong power.

Today, the Syria conflict is nowhere near fizzling. Even a year ago,
if al-Assad had been eliminated, then the war might have fizzled.
Actually, that would still be true today if it weren't for outside
intervention.

But, in my opinion, a tipping point has been reached and passed, and
even the elimination of al-Assad at this point would not end the Syria
conflict, because outside forces, particularly Russia and al-Qaeda, as
well as Iran and Hezbollah, are too committed to seeing it through to
victory.

Then there are the refugees. Some two million Syrians have been
displaced within Syria's borders. Hundreds of thousands of them are
pouring into neighboring countries, overwhelming services there. The
number of refugee children has just passed one million. Funds to feed
all these refugees are scarce, and humanitarian agencies are finding
it increasingly difficult to meet the needs of the refugees. In
Lebanon, sectarian conflicts are already growing, with two car bombs
targeting Sunnis on Friday, and a major explosion targeting Shias a
week ago.

At the same time, al-Qaeda is strengthening and growing. Russia's
military intervention in Syria has resulted in ruthless attacks on
Sunni Muslim families by the Shia/Alawite regime. So of course this
is going to tremendously inflame al-Qaeda linked groups. Jihadists
from throughout that part of the world, from Pakistan and Uzbekistan
to Libya and Nigeria to Dagestan and Chechnya are getting training so
that they can fight in Syria to defeat the Shia/Alawite regime, and
then the go to Syria and get further training that they can take back
home for more terrorist attacks.

That in turn has inflamed Shia jihadists. Iran has sent thousands of
troops to Syria to fight against al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah has sent tens
of thousands, and has scored some impressive victories that are
further inflaming the al-Qaeda linked groups.

Another factor is this week's horrific chemical weapons attack.
This is significantly increasing demands for military intervention
in Syria, not only in the West but also in the Arab states.

All of these factors have created a growing trend line that, in my
opinion, can no longer be stopped. Will the U.S. launch cruise
missiles into Syria, or not? I sure don't know, but in the long run,
I don't believe it will make any difference anyway. CNN and CBS News and LA Times